This year’s International Autumn Tournament will again be held at the Kents Hill Park Hotel and Conference Centre in Milton Keynes. The hotel is situated in a very quiet area of Milton Keynes on the edge of an extensive area of parkland. It is comprised of a number of separate buildings connected by covered walkways. The buildings are named after birds.
The main building, Swallow, contains the reception area, and the dining room on the ground floor. On the first floor is the bar. BCA will occupy the ground floor bedrooms of the Lapwing building, which is about 50 yards from the main building. The chess room will be on the ground floor of the Nightingale building, again about 50 yards from the main building but in the opposite direction from Lapwing. Kents Hill Park has a leisure Centre, which has a gym, an indoor swimming pool, a spa pool, a steam room and a sauna. The hotel is just a short taxi ride from Milton Keynes railway station.
Last year was the first time we held a tournament at Kents Hill Park. As a result of the feedback we received, some points have been discussed with the management there. If the hotel has not put tactile numbers on bedroom doors by the start of the tournament, they have agreed that we can provide our own temporary numbers. The staff will be instructed to ensure that we all sit together at mealtimes, which was something that did not always happen last year. Lunch time sandwiches will be available if people pre-book them in the same way that they can pre-book a cooked lunch. We have booked four accessible rooms as a minimum this year. Hopefully two of these will be rooms with walk-in showers and two with lowered baths. We have agreed that people who might have difficulty locating their rooms will be assigned rooms closer to the connecting walkways.
The format will be a five round Swiss tournament. If there are sufficient entries there will be two sections, an Open and a Challengers for those rated under 1450. When making your booking, please state the section you wish to play in. If you do not state a preference, it will be assumed you wish to enter the section according to your rating. Both tournaments are open to blind and partially sighted players and to associate members of the BCA. The tournament entry fee is £12, regardless of which section you enter.
The rate of play is likely to be 90 minutes for each player for all moves. Any player can request a half point bye in any one of the first four rounds or a delay in the start of their game in round 1 of 30 minutes. Likely start times for the rounds are 20.00 on the Friday evening, 09.45 and 14.15 on the Saturday and 09.45 and 14.00 on the Sunday.
The cost for dinner, bed and breakfast for BCA members and associate members per night is: for a single room, £60; for a twin/double room £50 per person. Bookings can be made via the appropriate online form on https://braillechess.org.uk/events/event-forms or by contacting the organiser. Payment for all accommodation (including Sunday if required), together with the entry fee should be sent to the Treasurer, Tristram Cole.
The closing date for entries is 5th September.
Please send any queries about the event to John Fullwood.